So Damon and Elena, finally together, how is that going to play out? Painfully or not?

Ian Somerhalder: I mean I think you know, I think you always have to be cognitive of the fact that it’s the Vampire Diaries and you can’t remain happy for too long in any one given scenario because then there’s no conflict. But it is cute to see them and their interactions together. I think anyone — whether it be Nina or Paul or myself — anyone will tell you it’s typically going to be a lot more fun to play the bad guy, the bad boy, the bad girl because they’re more dynamic, they’re more fun. But it is cute to see Damon and Elena and their interaction. Damon is just smitten, he’s in love and it’s cute, you know? Not to say he wouldn’t rip your throat out in two seconds, it’s the guy who has the same smirk on his face if he was saving a kitten out of a tree or ripping someone’s head off. It’s the same to him so you have to preface it with this is the type of man you’re dealing with.

How does Damon’s relationship with Elena ultimately affect his relationship with Stefan?

Well Stefan’s gone, so there is no relationship.

So he doesn’t make it out of his watery grave then?

Not, I mean, until further notice. I mean, well one thing that’s quite interesting about it actually is the dynamic that now is changed by virtue of the fact that Stefan is gone, and then that Silas is here now. It really does change the dynamic of the whole show. And we like that, just to preface it again as we’re going in to Season 5 of the show and usually these story lines have already been played out and we’re very fortunate right now because we have a new rejuvenated sense of coming into this show in season five the dynamics of the characters have changed quite a bit.

We’re also going back, from a production standpoint, we’re extremely dialed in the way we may have been Season 1. We were flying by the seat of our pants, we were shooting the story that were like little movies every week, we’re going back to that. Even photographically dialing it down, the color way down. It used to be remember the Vampire Diaries was so dark sometimes you had to really squint at the television to see the reaction of the character, but that’s the movies that we love seeing are like that. Not everything is bright and poppy and sunny. We got away from that in Season 3 and 4 of this show and so we’re excited to back to that and bring it back to, instead of condensing an ABCDEFG storyline all in one 46-minute episode of television with things exploding, we’re going back to this really human interacti….well not necessarily human, but the interaction between characters and really what that elicits in the audience. So we’re digging it.

Did I hear Jeremy is moving into that boarding house?

Jeremy? It’s not really a boarding house that was like the beginning of season one where it looked like a boarding house. It’s just a mansion. He is living there, you know, getting ready for school; I’m cutting the crust off his PB&J’s for him. Yeah I said to Julie [Plec] the funny thing was is that Elena comes back to the Salvatore mansion and there’s like game rooms and rooms with stripper poles in them, and they’re boys! He’s 18, Damon is 172, you know what I mean? There’s a good mix of demographics there.